Rob recently pointed out that for a sailing blog, I write very little about actually sailing. This is a fair point, but it is true what they say—sailing is boredom punctuated by terror. Most of the time we are just staring off at the vast seas and occasionally trimming the sails. But it doesn’t take much–a rogue wave, a squall, an engine pitch change, a pod of dolphins, a fish on the line—and things get exciting fast.
Tag: passagemaking
The Anegada Passage
Only about 2 hours into our 16 hour passage to St. Martin, our cooling water high temperature alarm started shining bright red. We were heading directly into the wind, so we only had our main sail up and we were running our engine at full cruising speed. Our autopilot was on and we were admiring the super moon when it happened. I jumped behind the wheel and quickly throttled down, while Rob rushed downstairs to inspect the engine. I glanced at our transom and saw that we had plenty of water flow coming out of our exhaust. Perhaps the sensor had just failed and there wasn’t really an issue. However, when Rob opened the engine compartment door our galley transformed into a steam room. It was clear that we had a severe leak in our cooling system, so I immediately fell off from the wind and shut the engine down.
Returning to the Cruising Lifestyle
We had a great time living in San Juan, PR over hurricane season, but we were itching to get back on the boat and continue our journey south. Last season, we quickly learned that cruising can be like a roller coaster ride with amazing highs and frustrating lows. And this season has started off the exact same way.
Passagemaking: The Northern Coast of the Dominican Republic and the Mona Passage
In order to travel from Luperon to Puerto Rico, we had to cross 300 miles of some of the most grueling and unforgiving seas. It’s the thorniest part of The Thorny Path to Windward. Bruce Van Sant provides excellent instructions on how to sail these waters under prevailing conditions. However, we decided to wait for weather windows with light winds and motor sail across as quickly as we could. We broke the journey up into two long overnight passages.